Pierre Bleton was arrested near Versailles in 1943 and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. He was one of the first prisoners to arrive at Porta Westfalica in March 1944. His novel "Le Temps du Purgatoire" is one of the most important sources of remembrance work in Porta Westfalica.
"The remote tunnel, whose entrance is at the foot of the mountain behind a group of bushes and where I struggled for the first few days, has become a huge hall; read more You either work yourself to death there, or you shirk and do nothing at all; there's hardly anything in between." read less
Pierre Bleton, Das Leben ist schön! Überlebensstrategien eines Häftlings im KZ Porta, Bielefeld 1987. Quote translated from German.
Biography
Pierre Bleton, born on 3 April 1924 in Epernay in the Champagne region of France, grew up in a middle-class family. After leaving school, he went to Paris to study law and political science.
read moreContacts with the Resistance and arrest
During his studies, he was in close contact with the Resistance, distributing leaflets and illegal newspapers. In 1943, he was arrested by the Gestapo during an illegal scout camp near Versailles. Via Fresnés prison and the Neue Bremm camp near Saarbrücken, he was transported to Buchenwald concentration camp at the beginning of 1944. On 18 March 1944, he arrived at Porta Westfalica with the first prisoner transport.From camp to camp
For just under six months, he had to perform extremely hard forced labour digging tunnels, including the ones in the Jakobsberg mountains. At the beginning of September 1944, he was transferred back to Neuengamme due to exhaustion. Bleton had to do forced labour in Neuengamme and later in the Fuhlsbüttel satellite camp, before being transferred first to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp and shortly afterwards to Mittelbau-Dora. On 11 April 1945, he was liberated in the Dora subcamp in the Boelcke barracks in Nordhausen. The camp in the Boelcke barracks was used by the SS as a death camp; the prisoners from the Dora complex who were so physically emaciated and ill that they could no longer be used for forced labour were sent here.Testimony
In 1953, Pierre Bleton published his autobiographical novel "Le Temps de Purgatoire" (The Time of Purgatory). In it, he describes in detail his time in the Neue Bremm, Buchenwald, Porta Westfalica, Neuengamme, Groß-Rosen and Mittelbau-Dora camps. He had already testified as a witness in the Porta trial before the French Tribunal Général in Rastatt in 1948. In the 1960s, the first translation of his part of the novel about Porta Westfalica was produced for the investigation files of the Cologne public prosecutor's office against the former SS-Leader of the camps in Porta, Hermann Wicklein."Life is beautiful!"
More than twenty years later, between 1984 and 1987, a school working group at Porta Grammar School, together with their teacher Gerhard Bothe, worked on the publication of another translation under the title "Life is beautiful!". The work of the group provided the impetus for the erection of a memorial to the victims of the satellite camps at Porta Westfalica in 1992.Pierre Bleton did not live to see the inauguration; he died on 20 October 1985 at the age of 61.
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"Are all wheelbarrows as heavy as these? Do all barrows have such thick bars? And I thought it was easy to handle...mess! read moreThe rough wooden handles slip out of my hand, I grab hold and off I go; but the wheel sinks into the ground and I push on. At the bend in the tunnel I see daylight; this is the most difficult section; the ground rises and at the end of the tunnel there is another steep incline. At the top, the trolley is tipped over and emptied. Fortunately, the commanding SS-Guard is not there today; three days after we arrived, he beat up a Russian with the handle of a pickaxe because he wasn't working fast enough; a mate even told me he died as a result." read less
Pierre Bleton, Das Leben ist schön! Überlebensstrategien eines Häftlings im KZ Porta, Bielefeld 1987. Quote translated from German.
Book cover "Life is beautiful!" - Survival strategies of a prisoner in the Porta concentration camp, Bielefeld 1987, published by AJZ Verlag.
Source: AJZ Verlag
"The commando sets off. By half past five, the intense heat has subsided and it's pleasant. Small, blond, tanned children are playing; they're too beautiful, it's devastating. read moreThe house on the corner still offers its guest rooms. Despite the war, the summer holidaymakers have not yet given up this August. From his doorstep, a prisoner of war who works in the bakery watches us march past; he must think he's in an occupied country, with all those French shop signs: Café, restaurant, pattisserie." read less
Pierre Bleton, Das Leben ist schön! Überlebensstrategien eines Häftlings im KZ Porta, Bielefeld 1987. Quote translated from German.
